“Second would have been better”Red Bull KTM 250 factory rider raced to third in the 250cc Grand Prix of Portugal on the Estoril racing circuit to secure his third podium in three races and a 12-point lead in the world championship.
"I thought before the season that
if all goes well, we could be leading the points now", the Finnish rider said. "A podium is always good but second would have been better."
Kallio started fourth on the grid and was lying in a comfortable third place in the second half of the race only to be denied second place by just 0.13 seconds going across the line in 44.41.320.
“At the beginning I had some problems with the hard front tyre but then I started to catch up. I saw that Simoncelli was beginning to have tyre problems and in the last lap I was waiting for an opportunity to pass him. But I wasn't able to do it. Just before we crossed the line we touched, otherwise we could have been second", Kallio said of an incident with second placed Marco Simoncelli right on the finish line. The Finn however was philosophical, saying that such incidents were a part of racing.
Kallio's teammate at Red Bull KTM 250 Hiroshi Aoyama finished in a solid fifth place. "I had a good start but I wasn't able to stick with the front group. I had some problems with my back tyre but then I started to get better and better but in the end the Aprilias were too fast for us today."
Red Bull KTM Director Harald Bartol: "Kallio raced a good race today and he was concentrating on the world championship."
While underlining that he was not speaking specifically of the final stages of the 250 cc race, Bartol said it was his general opinion that when such an incident happens on the home straight he thought it was matter for the race direction.
Red Bull KTM
